


Dead Man Banging AU

by Kennel_Boy, lazaefair, little_ogre, Poemsingreenink



Category: 24 Hours To Live - Fandom, The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not!Fic, Resurrection, Round Robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-01-30 12:58:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21428593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kennel_Boy/pseuds/Kennel_Boy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair, https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_ogre/pseuds/little_ogre, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink
Summary: A mash-up ofThe Magnificent Sevenand24 Hours To Live, wherein Billy Rocks, merc with a conscience, finds out that his partner is awfully lively for a dead guy.Many thanks tolittle_ogrefor coming up with the name for this AU!
Relationships: Billy Rocks/Travis Conrad, Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks
Comments: 18
Kudos: 19





	1. Awful Lively For A Dead Guy

**Author's Note:**

> So, lazaefair and I did a thing.
> 
> [Spinning out of this post,](https://northstarfan.tumblr.com/post/189023872931/lazaefair-northstarfan-lazaefair) the fandom now has a Mag7/_24 Hours To Live_ not-fic. 
> 
> [24 Hours to Live](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hours_to_Live) is currently on Netflix. It is… a lot of not great, but Ethan Hawke gets to be a shirtless, beaten-down human disaster with soulful eyes. That’s plot bunny Viagra right there.

Billy Rocks is an agent with the merc outfit that acquires Red Mountain’s “assets” after the company implodes under the combined assault of scandal and… ahem… “forcibly retired” leadership. 

He doesn’t get why he occasionally gets paired with a human disaster like Travis “Goodnight” Conrad. The guy’s with some off-the-books unit, Billy guesses, only gets brought out for rush jobs. He’s effective as hell, but there’s just something… off about him. Like, his sense of self-preservation is fucking lacking, but not in that nihilistic, burn-out way that Rocks has seen before; Goodnight’s not the guy who’s taking everyone with him when he finally ceases to give a fuck. He goes out of his way to prevent collateral damage, even… and that’s something they have in common. And against all better sense, Billy actually _likes_ this one-part charming, two-parts tragic asshole. As in, likes in ways that go against so much of his better judgment.

Then a job goes sideways. Billy gets out by the skin of teeth because Goodnight covers for him, but by the time he can get back in to finish the objective (and get his partner back), it’s too late. Goodnight’s just meat - three bullets in his back, dumped at the bottom of a dry well. Billy finishes the job, razes the place to the ground, calls for a clean-up.

Except that’s not the end of it. A day later, he gets pulled out of his own recovery bed, not by his handler, but by The Boss herself. She takes him for a stroll down to R&D, walking like she’s breaking the back of the world with each step. Billy suspects he is fucked, but can’t think of why. Shit happens. Not every job goes down clean, and this fuck-up was relatively contained.

The room’s all cold air and stainless steel, the crossroads of operating room and morgue. And there’s his partner, strapped to a slab, every muscle in his body seizing mindlessly against the restraints. There’s a redhead Billy doesn’t know leaning over him, shouting his name - the name Goodnight doesn’t use anymore - and it’s not reaching him.

Billy acts without thinking, pushing her aside, his heart in his throat and Goodnight’s name on his lips. And that breaks through the veil, pulls the man out from behind the fog in his eyes.

Goodnight slumps down, boneless and breathless, not all there, but very much alive. And in the space it takes Billy to narrow the thoughts racing through his mind down into one question, the confusion on Goodnight’s face bleeds away, replaced by a sad sort of resignation.

“Aw, fuck. God dammit, man…” He tries to sit up; the wrist restraints keep him in place. “They get you too?”

Potential twist: falling in love again, with Billy, releases so much oxytocin/seratonin/dopamine in Goodnight’s brain that it fucks with the drug cocktail and produces unforeseen complications in the revivication process. Commence hand-waving.

Additional twist: There’s a repeated point about the whole “follow the sound of my voice” bit when the doc wakes Travis up both times. In addition to all the sci-fi handwavey, the subject has to have the will to get back up off the slab, and he apparently hasn’t been following the good doc back to the light easily the last couple of times. Hence bringing in Billy as a last ditch effort to find a connection that’ll tow him back over the threshold. And yeah… turns out, Billy’s a really reliable anchor for the guy. This… is not entirely a good thing, but it’s definitely A Thing they need to deal with eventually.

Third twist: Travis’s hallucinations of his wife and kid start getting intercut with hallucinations of Billy.

Fourth twist: The Company decides to test just how long Doc Helen’s refined procedure works. They turn off the kill switch and just put Billy and Travis in a room together to see how long it takes before Travis just up and dies.

(None of them - Billy and Travis included - have put two and two together that love-related hormones have been fucking with the revivication cycle; Billy’s just allowed on because the presence of his fuck buddy/partner keeps Travis more tractable.)

Travis is ready to chew rocks and spit sand because he assumes Billy’s been strong-armed into this. Billy shrugs and says he volunteered.

Yes, Billy started fucking Travis _after_ he found out Travis is technically dead. It’s against his better judgment; the association with necrophilia is unavoidable, and people in their line of work who have or develop anything that messes with their impulse control - like strong sexual fetishes - end up dead very fast. So he successfully ignores his attraction for a couple missions. 

And then after yet another narrow escape Goodnight spouts off something about how “You make me feel alive again” only phrased much more stupidly poetically while they’re squashed together into a very small hiding place and he— Billy can _feel_ the warmth of Goodnight’s body seeping into his side, can hear and feel his chest moving as he breathes, can smell the tang of his sweat and blood, knows if he touched Goodnight’s skin his hand would come away slick with that sweat. Absolutely nothing about him suggests that he’ll be a corpse in half a day, everything about him says that he’s alive. And his whisky-hoarse voice brushes so softly at Billy’s ear…

Travis has his own hesitations about getting emotionally involved, too - his wife and kid were killed by his old outfit, and his best friend was in on it. They made it look like a revenge killing, but it was really all about trying to keep Travis in the game when he was thinking about getting out of it for his family. (Had the opposite effect, hence the human disaster period.)

But in the end… fuck, what does he have to lose? (Or so he tells himself. He knows the answer.)

Extra points if Billy is Travis’s first time with a guy.

But it’s _Billy._ Billy is his soulmate across the fandom multiverse, so their first time is surprisingly easy, for all that it’s in some dank bolthole of a safe house and neither of them can ever forget the clock that’s always ticking down. But Billy’s plastered all along his front, intense, ferocious, dragging Goodnight with him into passionate pleasure with the same uncompromising focus he brings to his work, and hey wow, dead or not, apparently Goodnight is _really_ into that.

All tangled up in each other on a narrow mattress, nerves humming with the kind of contentment touch-starved Billy hasn’t felt in a long time, and Travis hadn’t figured he’d ever feel again. The bruises Billy’s left on his biceps are almost as satisfying as his first tattoos. Even if no one ever gives the order to wake him up again, at least he had a choice in that much.

After that day, and after a few more missions where he revives to Billy’s voice and Billy’s face, his hallucinations start coming on later and later in the cycle. He’s winding down much later and more slowly. Until there’s one mission where - of course you can’t say anything with absolute, 100% scientific certainty - but that’s the mission where it looks an awful lot like the only reason Travis dies at the end is because of the kill switch, not because of the drugs metabolizing.

The Agency finds that very, _very_ curious. And that curiosity as to why the treatments are lasting longer is how he and Billy end up in a glass-fronted room, watching garbage TV on the overhead, shooting the shit, and playing cards to pass the time. Until the hallucinations start. The Boss wants to pull Billy out then; even unarmed, Travis is dangerous. Doc Helen wants to wait and see how it plays out. First round of brainfuckery ends with Travis’ face hidden against Billy’s shoulder, shuddering as he uses the familiarity of his partner’s scent to try and ground himself in the here and now.

(No one in the business is at all body-shy - can’t afford to have hang-ups in life-and-death situations - especially if they work with a partner. So the penny doesn’t drop for the observers even then.)

Second round is quieter - Travis goes into a fugue and stares into space for a while, before he abruptly jolts out of it. Doesn’t say a damn thing, just joins Billy on the cot and goes back to watching Blue Planet. He’s a little wobbly, even seated. Billy’s shoulder picks up the slack again.

Billy is controlling himself to a degree even he rarely has to reach for; he desperately wants to curl around Goody and kiss him and touch him the way lovers touch each other, make Goody feel at least a little more protected. But he can’t do that, obviously. And then at the same time he still has to stay relaxed and comforting for Goody’s sake, minimize the stress Goody might sense in him. Without going outside the bounds of platonic affection. While watching Goody die in front of him. More slowly than usual, sure, but he recognizes the same progression.

He’s seen his partner dead. He’s never had to stand by and watch him take that last breath. Sometimes the hand-off to the doc - Helen - has been with minutes to spare, with Goodnight barely on his feet. Not this time. He’s here for the duration. He doesn’t know how many times Goodnight has been through this. He can be there for him this once. He’ll hold it together, for Goody’s sake.

Goody shudders against him, a quiet spasm. Billy squeezes his shoulder, resists the urge to stroke his face. 

“It’s all right. Don’t think about it.”

“Doubt it’s a walk in the park for you, either,” Goody mumbles quietly into Billy’s shoulder. “Just feels like passin’ out on my end, these days. But you’re gonna feel my heart stop.”

Billy contemplates him for a long moment, thinking all the things he can’t say, not in front of the cameras and mics, not in front of the blank stretch of one-way glass. 

He finally settles on a deliberate, exaggeratedly dismissive, “Eh. I’ll live.” 

Goody shakes against him again, but from laughter this time. “Jesus H. Christ, Rocks, that’s cold even for you. Didn’t know you had it in you,” and Billy snickers with him. Neither of them mention the faint whistle in Goody’s voice or the fainter rattle in his lungs. 

“Son of a bitch,” Goodnight mutters, lingering laughter twisting the curse into affection. “No wonder the fish don’t like you.”

Billy blinks. This is new. “What?”

“Something my father-in-law told me once. Explaining why I was so shit at fishing. Animals are drawn to the light of men’s souls or some shit. And I don’t have a soul, so I never could catch a fucking fish.”

“Gee, thanks.” Goodnight’s fully resting against him now; Billy shrugs hard enough to jostle him in retaliation. “Asshole.”

“Two of a kind…” He sits up with a jolt. His tired eyes are wide and confused as he glances around the room. “Shit. _Shit._ Rocks, what are you doing here?” He tries to stand and somehow manages it.

“Hey. Goodnight.” Billy can see his partner’s pulse hammering stubbornly away in his throat. “Hey. Sit back down. I’m supposed to stay with you, remember?”

“They’re going to be home soon… you can’t be here. Shit.”

Billy almost asks, but the answer comes to him. The wife and kid. Goody never even says their names, but he’s told Billy what happened to them. He’s hallucinating a memory. It’s on the tip of his tongue to tell Goodnight that they’re dead. But there’s no point. He’ll remember soon enough.

“You’re right. I’m not here,” he murmurs. “I’m your fucked up mind playing tricks on you. So just relax and wait until your family gets in, all right?”

He’s expecting a repeat of the first round of hallucinations, braces himself against it. Instead, he gets an uncertain look and a long exhale, and then the line of Goody’s shoulders smooths out and he smiles all wry and lopsided at Billy. Billy ignores his heart flopping over in his chest and looks back up at him, steady and waiting. 

“Well,” Goody says, almost to himself, “I’ve had uglier hallucinations show up on my couch, I guess. And you…” he reaches out suddenly, rests the tips of his fingers on the side of Billy’s neck with a tiny caress that sends arousal quicksilvering through Billy’s veins, bright and shocking. Like he’s a fucking teenager again. He manages to keep his eyes open, but it’s a close call. “You feel near enough to real it almost don’t make a difference. Wish we could…”

His eyes are fucking gorgeous even under the shitty fluorescent lighting. Blue and vital. Billy holds himself ruthlessly still. “Could what?” 

“I wish we could’ve known each other out in the world, man,“ Goodnight sighs. "Before everything went to shit. When I could still stand the sound of my own fucking name. You ever seen the Keys?”

His hand is still on Billy’s neck; he can feel his own pulse against Goody’s fingers, the subtle electricity running between the two of them. 

“I never got that far south,” he manages. He wants to take Goody out of this fucking room and let him have some kind of dignity. He wants to curl up around him and keep him safe while the clock ticks down. He doesn’t want to think of how he’s thrown his heart for dogs to tear, falling for this ghost of a man. They just… need to get through this.

“You should go. Fishing’s shit, but… sunlight and sand and wide, blue ocean. You’d like it.” He quiets for a time. “Kate and Adam aren’t coming. I know that.”

“All right, Goody.” He squeezes Goodnight’s wrist. The kill switch embedded in Goody’s flesh is cold, even under a layer of skin. He commits the names of the dead to memory. “Sorry. Thought it’d be good for you to forget a while.”

“I don’t. Not really.” Another span of quiet, longer this time. “How long’s it been?”

“I don’t know. Longer than a day, I guess. You’re doing all right. I haven’t had to carry your ass anywhere, at least.” Billy grins when Goodnight snorts a laugh. “Tell The Boss to send you along with a suitcase next time, just in case.” Because he’s not leaving Goody behind again now that he knows, not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kennel_Boy: I am 100% here for “Death itself is held at bay by true love” in this ridic wannabe-John Wick setting.
> 
> lazaefair: Have we stumbled on this fandom’s very first fuck or die scenario?
> 
> Kennel_Boy: I think we may have created a whole new one - fuck and die. On repeat. XD


	2. Let’s Be Efficient

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which little_ogre keeps the madness going by elaborating on the first kiss (and what followed!).

Billy wanted to kiss Goodnight before he found out Goodnight was dead, and he still wants to, after. 

It was a bad idea for different reasons then; military men, homophobia and codependency all wrapped up in a distressing bundle, but he still wanted to. Wanted to from the first time Goody took a deep drag off his cigarette and fitted his eyes to the scope, sighting down the line. 

“Come and see,” he said, smiling lazy and rough at Billy, before carefully, gently taking the cigarette out of his mouth and placing it between Billy’s teeth. “And I looked, and behold a pale horse,” he fitted his eye back to the scope, so still he was barely breathing, “and his name that sat on him was Death.”

Then he squeezed the trigger and all hell broke loose. 

So yeah, Billy wanted to kiss him before, and that’s really his only line of defense. It’s a pretty fucking flimsy defense, he concludes after helping Goodnight down from the medical bed - t-shirt glued to his skin, almost translucent with sweat, the autopsy scar stark on his chest - considering that Billy knows what he knows now and he still wants to jump the man’s bones. 

“Get a fucking grip, Rocks,” he tells himself sternly in the bathroom mirror. “It’s fucking necrophilia,” but he finds that it doesn’t help against the voice that pipes up with _only technically!_ when Goody is a warm, breathing presence beside him; all deft, dexterous hands, smelling of clean sweat and gunpowder, his lilting whiskey-roughened voice in Billy’s ears. That unsteady smile, the slightly blurred edges. Billy still wants him, still feels his tongue burn in his mouth with longing. 

In any case, it’s never been a good idea in Billy’s line of work to mix business with pleasure, and to add arousal to the adrenaline and hair-trigger decision-making - so he tries to ignore it. You get tangled up with something and it fucks with your impulse control and impartiality, you end up dead before long and Billy can just tell, with Goodnight, there is no end to how deep he’d get himself. 

If his interest was unreciprocated, that’d be one thing, but Goodnight tracks him from the corners of his eyes and always has a smile somewhere for Billy. Goodnight, who calls him handsome, pretty, beautiful, lovely; always in jest, but with something brittle in the back of his eyes that suggests if he couldn’t say it as a joke it would explode out of him in a torrent he couldn’t hold back. Billy’s been flattered before, but never so strangely, not by someone whose eyes feel like they flay him to his very soul. 

And then there they are crouching behind cover, the very tangible sound of bullets zipping past them, adrenaline heightening everything until the edges are unnaturally sharp and Goodnight smiles at him and leans over for a moment, his hand on Billy’s shoulder. 

“Ain’t never been nobody,” he murmurs, “under the stars and moon like you. Even with all that stuff Doc pumps me full of, I bet you could still make my heart beat,” and Billy’s heart slams into his mouth and his long repressed libido rears its head and demands, _craves,_ and Billy thinks _fuck it, life’s too short._ What’s a little necrophilia among friends anyway? It’s not like he hasn’t done more morally objectionable things. 

They split up. That’s not the plan going sideways, that was the idea all along. Billy speeding ahead to complete the mission and Goodnight drawing fire and mayhem in his wake, before making their rendezvous at their safe house before extraction.

Billy gets there first and stows the equipment, efficiently dismantling and packing up. Which means there’s still time to pace the little apartment, waiting and waiting for Goodnight. _Please, not this time._ He’s not sure he can retrieve Goodnight’s body again, lifeless and slumped, only meat left. 

_Rendezvous means lovers meeting,_ he thinks, mouth quirking. That’s probably not what the military had in mind when they adopted the jargon, but it’s still the first meaning. He paces up and down like a caged tiger, his mouth sour with worry. And then the door clicks and Goodnight steps through. 

Billy doesn’t hesitate. Just watches Goody lock the door behind him before grabbing his shirt and slamming him into the wall and kissing him in one seamless movement. 

It doesn’t feel like a first kiss. There is no confusion, no awkward fitting-together of noses and lips - just Goody, who makes a squashed, desperate noise before he opens up for Billy, equally hungry, equally starved. 

Their first time is just inside the door of the safe house, on the floor, against the wall. Rushing to get as much of each other as they can before the extraction team comes to pick them up, before the time on the display counts down, before the drugs metabolize to the point that Goodnight can’t tell the difference between hallucination and reality. 

It’s teeth and tongues and grabby, greedy hands, clothes half off and half on, hems torn and a thousand minor discomforts neither of them can separate long enough to tend to. It’s Goodnight’s death grip on Billy’s beard and jaw as he comes, hips pumping and breath hitching and Billy tries desperately to catch the scent of death on him, a lingering malodor, a trace of formaldehyde and putrefaction, but he finds none - only the sound of Goody’s breath whistling in his throat, the smell of sweat and semen. They stay curled together afterwards, Billy in Goodnight’s lap with his arms around his neck, like they are teenagers, like they are lovers, like they are something more innocent than a trained killer clutching a dead man trying to keep the inevitable seconds from ticking away from him. 

Goody kisses Billy’s temple softly and smiles, still blurry at the edges. 

“Come on, let’s shower before the cavalry comes,” he says, a playfulness to his tone that Billy knows he had to strive for, and Billy has to take a moment, pressing his burning eyes closed, before he can match it.

“We should share,” he says. “More efficient.”

By all means, Goody agrees. Let’s be efficient.


	3. Return To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Thing is, when they started fucking – back when the Agency was still reviving Goodnight only in 24-hour cycles – it took a while for them to really get good at it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come and see. And I looked, and behold a scarlet horse: and his name that sat on him was Explicit, and smut followed with him.

_Return to me_  
_Oh my dear I am so lonely_  
_Hurry back, hurry back, oh my love_  
_Hurry back, I'm yours_

The first time we hear this song, it’s when Billy and Travis are sitting in an Italian restaurant waiting for a target to walk in. The restaurant’s got just the one Dino album playing on loop, which by the third go-round provokes Goodnight into a quiet but vicious rant about the Rat Pack that Billy mostly allows to go out his other ear while he just sits back and enjoys the sight of a riled-up Goody: blue eyes flashing, voice rasping like silk over velcro, ridiculous vocabulary growing even more ridiculous proportional to his level of indignation. 

He’s miles away from the dead-eyed wreck of those first missions, and yes, Billy means to commit this image to long-term memory. Like he’s done for every single other moment they’ve managed to carve out just for themselves so far.

This is, of course, also why he makes sure to have “Return To Me” playing on his phone the next time he’s in the lab watching Goodnight gasp himself back to life.

_Return to me_  
_For my heart wants you only_  
_Hurry home, hurry home, won't you please_  
_Hurry home to my heart?_

“Oh, fuck you,” is the first thing Goodnight says as soon as he’s got the breath to speak.

“What?” Billy deadpans. “It’s our song.”

Goodnight’s jaw drops open, and yes, it does seem that delighted outrage drives the miserable post-revivication haze out of his eyes at least as quickly as anything else they’ve tried. "You think you're hilarious, don't you?"

“Well,” Billy says, watching the Doc’s lips pinch together in disapproval out of the corner of his eye, “if you shoot me, they can just bring me back, can't they?" 

(Truth is, that’s Billy's worst nightmare. But he's not saying that out loud.)

_Oh, this is the night_  
_It's a beautiful night_  
_And they call it Bella Notte_

Because Billy is a complete shit, he pulls Bella Notte up on his phone 48 hours later, when Goodnight is dying on the same slab. Just so Goodnight goes out with a laugh instead of the sad kicked puppy eyes for once.

Unfortunately this backfires, because Goodnight _remembers_ it the next time he’s revived. And when they’re done with that mission, he drags Billy back to the same fucking Italian place afterwards – Billy’s mildly surprised they aren’t instantly kicked out after what happened last time – and then proceeds to stare him down over a plate of spaghetti. A single, solitary plate.

“You are fucking kidding me.”

“Too chicken to finish what you started, huh.”

“That isn’t chicken, that is ground beef and bread crumbs,” Billy says because he can’t help it, but then he dips his head to the plate, gets a mouthful of spaghetti, and raises his head to stare at Goodnight in one fluid move. A clear challenge.

Goodnight looks back, now slightly glazed over. Probably because Billy had to stick his tongue out and sort of twirl some noodles onto it while sucking the ends into his mouth, and now he’s holding them gently with his lips so he doesn’t accidentally chew through them. Goodnight’s throat visibly bobs. A promising start.

...sadly, not a promising end. It turns out that Lady-and-the-Tramping a plate of spaghetti is actually a lot messier and not at all sexy in real life. Goodnight gets red sauce all over his shirt. Billy tells him that’s okay, it'll blend in with all the blood.

"Your problem, Rocks, is that you have no fucking standards."

"Yeah, explains how I wound up with you."

Goody smiles, sly. "Not what I heard when you were balls-deep inside my dead ass."

Billy is a fucking professional, a paragon of control, and this is why he does not choke on his bite of meatball as his brain immediately starts imagining it in vivid hi-def surround-sound clarity. Nor does he flinch when their server coughs politely at that exact moment. Instead, he smiles back with all his teeth, orders more water to wash down the bite of meatball he did not choke on, and considers the precise nature of the penance he’s going to exact from Goody later.

Thing is, when they started fucking – back when the Agency was still reviving Goodnight only in 24-hour cycles – it took a while for them to really get good at it. Goodnight was out of practice to begin with, on top of never having slept with a man before, and they have to grab snatches of time where they can. He did get the hang of frottage and handjobs pretty quickly – they’re not complicated affairs – and that’s fine, more than fine because that’s often all they have time for anyway.

But sometimes they manage to carve out a little more. This is one of Billy’s stored long-term memories: parked in a dark and quiet parking garage waiting for a baseball game to end so they can slip away in the streaming crowds. Pushing Goodnight into the back seat and pinning him there, getting his jeans and boxers open the absolute bare minimum necessary for Billy to pull his cock out and swallow it down like he means to eat Goody alive starting from the groin up. One hand shoved into Goody’s boxers to rub unmerciful fingers over his perineum, the other hand shoved up under his obnoxious baseball jersey to pinch and tease his nipples. By the time he comes hot and fast and bitter down Billy’s throat, he’s wrapped both arms around his head and bitten down on the inside of his elbow, trying to muffle his own yelling.

Billy’s smiling as he pulls off with a slurp. Greedily taking in the sight of Goody’s heaving chest, his blotchy flushed skin and reddened nipples; hips still trying to jerk up under Billy’s weight, whole body visibly twitching with aftershocks. The taste, the smell of sex hanging heavy in the air. The sound of Goody biting wet gasps into his arm as he comes down, blue eyes dazed. 

Undeniably, indisputably alive. And appealing as hell. Shit.

Somehow Billy still manages to grind out, “Later,” when Goodnight offers to return the favor. “Game’s almost over.”

“Now that hardly seems fair,” Goodnight objects, and Billy has to catch his hands up from where they’re undoing his fly because, fuck. _Fuck,_ yes, he’s painfully, mortifyingly hard – any further and he’s genuinely not sure he could resist temptation. He takes a deep breath through his nose, then makes himself give Goodnight a rueful smile.

“If you don’t know what you’re doing down there yet, I don’t want your teeth near my dick.”

The laugh clearly catches Goody by surprise. “A regular Prince goddamn Charming, ladies and gentlemen,” he wheezes out, and then proceeds to snap his teeth at Billy every time he catches Billy’s eye for the rest of that cycle. Which means they’re still grinning like fools when they get back to the morgue/lab hours later, drawing a raised eyebrow out of Doc Helen, and yeah. They’re so very, very fucked.

Because the next time the Agency raises Goodnight, it’s to stick them both in an observation room to see how long revivication really lasts.

_Side by side with your loved one,_  
_You'll find enchantment here_  
_The night will weave its magic spell,_  
_When the one you love is near_

Goodnight lives for a little under two and a half days before he dies again, seizing and hallucinating as his body finally fails beyond recall. Billy acquires a fresh, brand-new set of memories to repress. And nobody has any idea how or why the fuck their fucked-up science experiment has started defying the 24-hour metabolization cycle dictated by the doc’s meticulously calculated procedure.

They still don’t have any ideas. It’s driving Doc Helen a little insane, which serves her right. The Agency does start setting the kill switch to 48 hours, at least, since Goodnight seems to be able to operate that long. 

It means now they have more time, each cycle. Not a lot more. But enough for Billy to look at Goodnight over a destroyed plate of spaghetti and say, “Let’s get out of here.” And after they’ve paid and left, to take Goodnight to his buddy Red Harvest’s nearby apartment (“We have blanket permission to break into each other’s places if we ever need to,” he explains as he hacks into Red’s security system) and after they’ve swept it for bugs, to pull Goodnight into the bedroom and strip him down, kissing and fondling as he goes. And after he’s shed his own clothes, to lean against the wall, spread his legs, and put Goodnight on his knees between them.

“It isn’t that difficult,” Billy says. Slides a hand into Goody’s hair while he holds his cock steady for Goody to lick. “You already know what it’s like to get sucked off. What feels good. Just do that.” 

Goodnight grins up at him, lips hovering tantalizingly close to the tip of Billy’s dick. “So if I said _I _liked gettin’ a little scratched up down there…”

“You injure me in any way, I won’t be able to fuck you through the mattress until you’re screaming into a pillow before we have to report back to HQ,” Billy retorts as calmly as he can, which doesn’t quench Goodnight at all. If anything, his grin gets even bigger.

“That’s…” He licks his lips, eyes flaring bright with anticipation. “Goddamn, Rocks. That’s one hell of a compelling argument.”

“It is,” Billy agrees. Then he gives in and just...pushes Goody’s head down.

And, well. It might be the first time Goodnight’s ever performed fellatio, but Billy has a sneaking suspicion that if he tracked down Goodnight’s ex-girlfriends and questioned them, he’d only get dreamy sighs and sung praises, because fucking hell, his _mouth._ Goodnight blows him with messy enthusiasm – licking broad stripes up the shaft, swirling little exploratory circles around the head. Lapping up the steadily leaking precome that betrays just how fucking much this is turning Billy on. When he opens up to suck Billy in as deep as he can, experimenting with speed and depth and pressure, Billy actually has to work to keep control of himself. When Goodnight starts moaning around his cock, he damn near comes then and there like a damn teenager. Jesus. _Jesus, _yes.

“Fuck. Should’ve known you’d be a natural. All that talking you do all the time,” Billy says, breathless with the slick heat of Goody’s mouth, the coy pleasure of his tongue rubbing against sensitive skin. Goodnight flicks a glance up at him through his lashes, and the picture he makes – expressive lips stretched wide, stuffed full of Billy’s cock—

He’s pulling Goodnight off and up in the next moment, drags him stumbling towards the bed even as he’s asking, “Billy?” in laughing confusion. He goes down easily anyway, loose and relaxed as he sprawls on his belly, and Billy would growl at this display of complete trust – a career assassin, letting himself be manhandled without so much as an aborted twitch towards what should be ingrained reflexes – but he’s too busy clambering onto the bed after Goodnight to get his hands on that pale, tempting ass. Spread his cheeks wide, dive in and lick a sloppy path from balls to hole in one relentless sweep. Tongue him open until he’s drenched, _dripping _with saliva. Hold him down as he shouts and thrashes in response.

Christ. Billy feels like a starving man presented with a fucking Golden Corral buffet. This is the first time they’ve had the kind of privacy and security and decent goddamn furniture that finally lets him spread Goodnight out under him completely bare—naked and vulnerable and eager as Billy shoves two spit-slicked fingers in, groaning out profanities in that honey-whiskey voice as he pushes back into every thrust, bite, kiss—savage desperation steadily shredding Billy’s control the more Goody yields to him until Billy can’t take it anymore, has to fuck him, _has_ to be inside Goody if it kills them both.

“Wait—” Goody gasps out. Billy freezes with the head of his cock nudged right up to Goody’s hole, Jesus, he’s so close to sinking in he can fucking _taste _it, but— “Can’t leave marks,” Goody manages shakily. “Least not these kinds of marks. You got any—”

“Lube, yes, got it,” Billy’s already leaned over to yank the nightstand open, precariously balanced with one hand rummaging through the drawer and the other hand planted in the small of Goodnight’s back to keep him in place. He finds both slick and condoms in the drawer, thank fuck. “Definitely owe Red a big favor after this,” Billy mutters as he covers himself in latex and lube.

“Venti-sized favor at the least,” Goodnight quips. “If not the whole damn—_nnnnnnnh_—the whole damn latte, Jesus fucking Christ, _Billy_—_”_ he shudders into a hitching moan, back arching, hands curling into fists on the sheets.

“Goody...” Billy moans with him. Attention glued to the obscene, glistening stretch of Goody’s rim around his cock as he presses in – slowly, agonizingly slowly, rocking in and out in small increments, opening Goodnight up as carefully as he can stand. 

By the time Billy bottoms out, he’s drawing long, measured breaths through his nose in an effort to still the tremors he can already feel building up in every muscle. Goodnight’s gone uncharacteristically wordless under him – breathing in shallow little pants, shoulders and back bunched up with tension, fingers clawed into the mattress. Billy drags more air into his lungs, digs his nails into his left thigh. Focuses on the pain and manages to stave off the screaming urge to _move move move MOVE _just enough that he can keep his hips completely still when he leans forward to run his hand down the rigid line of Goodnight’s spine. Long, calming strokes belying how the rest of him is outright shaking with need.

“Goody. Talk to me.”

“Ah, god, Billy—Jesus—” Equally strained and shuddering. But Billy keeps murmuring nonsense and he feels Goody’s rib cage start to expand and contract under his palm: deep, even breaths following the rhythm of the petting. Until Goody’s body slowly, slowly unravels from the shoulders down. Until it feels less like he’s trying to cut the circulation off in Billy’s cock and—oh fuck, fuck, _shit._

Billy squinches his eyes shut, hangs his head, desperately tries to relax along with Goody, because now nothing is holding back the pleasure coiling in his balls and surging through his core. Every inch of his cock gripped in slick, melting heat, still deliriously tight. He’s forced to bite the inside of his cheek before he loses the last shred of control he has.

(If he ever had any control to begin with, with Goodnight.)

Goodnight takes another deep breath. Then quietly laughs under the next one, soft and hoarse. “Gonna have to apologize to Kate, if I ever see her again.”

The laughter makes him spasm around Billy’s cock in maddening little flutters. Billy grits his teeth. “Yeah?”

“And maybe an old girlfriend or two. It’s—” Goody shifts experimentally. Groans when Billy’s hips stutter down in response. “—_goddamn, _Billy—it ain’t like anything I ever felt before. ‘S fuckin’ intense.”

“Goody,” Billy says again, and now his voice is shaking, too. _Pleading, _for fuck’s sake – he’s so far gone for Goodnight, for a dead man, he feels like he must be the punchline for some kind of cosmically unfunny joke.

Goody turns his head: flash of blue between eyelids slitted with pleasure, lips parted slightly, bitten red and shining wet. But he’s smiling that one-sided smile, rough and lazy. The one that made Billy want to kiss him in the first place.

“Go on, darlin’,” Goody says. “The hell are you waiting for?”

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus poster!
> 
> [](https://imgur.com/yVD1P43)  



End file.
